Viking 1 and 2 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com 1975. Can we really remember that far back? I was 22 years old. How about you? Well, we should try because on August 20, 1975, Viking 1, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a mission to Mars. From History.com:…
Duane Hackney Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, Wikipedia There really are super heroes, it turns out, and not the Marvel or DC Comics or video game “fake news” versions of them. They come in the form of skin and bones, flesh and blood human beings who accomplish extraordinary acts by mere force of human…
Aviation History: September 6, 1522 Contributor: Barry Fetzer The ease at which we board a cruise ship or a jet airliner today and sail the “Seven seas” or circumnavigate the globe by air, well, they mask the great risk and difficulties of those early explorers who led us to these benefits…these gifts…these blessings…of the…
September 1, 1983 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com and Wikipedia I opined several issues ago that perhaps the worst kind of mishap is one in which a nation’s military makes a series of mistakes and downs a civilian passenger aircraft. America, unfortunately, is not blameless in these kinds of tragic mistakes. On this day in…
Balloons! Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: The New York Times Archives Balloons! Discounting the recent Chinese Spy balloon debacle, balloons (perhaps the simplest of aerial phenomena), are fun! But we’re not talking party balloons, get-well balloons, or chintzy (but certainly daring…or was it intoxicated?) lawn chair balloon flights, one of the first one of these “intoxicating”…
JAL Flight 123 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, Wikipedia Suffering a mishap that takes control away from pilots is perhaps the most frightening of mishaps. No one of us humans like to lose control of anything (although the old adage that “Man plans and God laughs” applies here), but when a pilot and copilot can…
Nagasaki, August 9, 1945 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, New Yorker Magazine, This Day in Aviation, National Archives The recently released movie Oppenheimer highlights the history of the development of the atom bomb and the drive to beat the Germans at developing a nuclear bomb, the moral dilemmas and political affiliations that tore at some…
The Atomic Age Begins Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com View of “The Bomb” over Hiroshima, August 6, 1945 Debate rages even 78-years later and will continue to rage for decades, even centuries, (if we don’t first blow ourselves back to the Stone Age) about whether Americans should have used its terrible weapon against Japan during…